I am a male in my late 40s. I have had RLS on since about my early twenties when I found myself commuting about 4 hours a day by train. It has usually come on with either inactivity or feeling really tired.

After some sleeping issues (serious insomnia, weeks with only 4 hours sleep, for example) I have been taking Seroquel to slow my brain enough to sleep. The trouble is that Seroquel gives me restless legs almost every night, often it becomes extremely irritating and the only thing keeping me from cutting my right leg off is the fear of phantom reastless legs. I tried Siffrol but that only seemed to work for a while. I've tried so many things to the pointthat my bathroom cabinet is a pretty good representation of the periodic table.

This is why I am so surprised that this way of minimising reastless legs is working (for now anyway - other things seemed to have worked for a while to then be ineffective [I tried this for a week before now writing this to be sure]) is working and that it has taken me this long to figure it out. I thought last week about how I describe the RLS to other people (it's like your arteries are being unbearably tickled) and then thought why don't I tickle my feet to get that same unbearable tickling feeling and maybe that could be a distraction from the RLS. So far it has worked and I am not up for hours after going to bed moving my legs around.

The method is this; first I loosen up my foot (the left leg is the biggest problem although since doing this the RLS has not occured in my other leg, arms or chest - yeah, I get it bad) by loosening the ankle by rotating the foot around the ankle a bit until nice and loose. I then tickle the bottom of my foot with the finger nails out and no socks on. It has to be ticklish to you, the idea is to get yourself to flinch from the tickling from time to time and to eventually get the foot insensitive to the tickling. The parts to tickle are the arch of the foot mostly but also up the inside to the ankle and at the back a bit above the ankle, pretty much the bits that are most ticklish. I find it helps to run the fingers from toes to heel a couple of times to finish off. You will need to do this a few times as one application is usually not enough.

This has already made me feel I've got some of my life back so I had to share it - I hope it works for others too and if so I'd love to hear from you. (If not here I have an email address with my name at gmail).

It's wonderful that you have found this to work for you, and I dare say there will be many folks tickling their feet very soon.I think I have heard of this before, a long time ago. Sometimes a remedy can work for a time on the placebo factor and I sincerely hope that this is not the case for you.Thank you for telling us - we are all open to any ideas from another sufferer.

Do you do this while your symptoms are active, do you do this anyway at night whether symptoms are active or not.Are you on any medication for your symptoms, and have you had a blood ferritin serum level done. The ferritin level is best up around 100 even though doctors/labs may consider 20 to be normal.

I hope it keeps working for you. Just the thought of doing it makes me want to scream, lol. Tickling and light touch are two things that automatically GIVE me symptoms, even if I do not have any. I do not know if I could get myself to try this...OK, I just tried it. I lived through it . I don't have symptoms at the moment - not active. I'm in what I call pre-WED. It's when I know symptoms will start soon.

One of the categories of items that help is called counterstimulation - feet in ice bucket, warm bath, massage. I would imagine this is a type of counterstimulation. We tend to clump together - some of us like cold, some hot, some pressure, some light touch, some deep touch, and so on.

I do the loosening thing a lot and find it can help when symptoms are mild - especially when I get stretch at an angle that almost pulls my muscles. That alone can get me back to sleep sometimes.

I tried this last night when I awakened with symptoms. First, I walked to the bathroom, then had some water and came back to bed. I did the stretch, then the tickle. I was able to go back to sleep. I found it hard to sort of tickle myself - the effect wasn't as strong as someone else doing it. I could feel it promote or bring on the sensations in my thighs, but it didn't make it worse.

What I do not know is if it was the walking, the waking, the stretching, or the tickling - or the combo - that helped me go back to sleep. Since the same likely would have happened if I'd just stretched, or if I'd walked and stretched, I think I need to try it without stretching.

For me, my symptoms were very mild at the time - I couldn't have fallen back to sleep without doing something - but likely any movement would have done the job. I need to do it when they are more intense, too.

ViewsAskew wrote:I hope it keeps working for you. Just the thought of doing it makes me want to scream, lol. Tickling and light touch are two things that automatically GIVE me symptoms, even if I do not have any. I do not know if I could get myself to try this...OK, I just tried it. I lived through it . I don't have symptoms at the moment - not active. I'm in what I call pre-WED. It's when I know symptoms will start soon.

One of the categories of items that help is called counterstimulation - feet in ice bucket, warm bath, massage. I would imagine this is a type of counterstimulation. We tend to clump together - some of us like cold, some hot, some pressure, some light touch, some deep touch, and so on.

I do the loosening thing a lot and find it can help when symptoms are mild - especially when I get stretch at an angle that almost pulls my muscles. That alone can get me back to sleep sometimes.

here's hoping this works for a very long time to come.

This sounds exactly like the type of RLSWED I have. Any touching of the feet or legs sends my legs into spasms I've tried the ice water foot soak and I think I've tried hot water (insomnia has taken a toll on my memory). I've tried the foot soak in epsom salts, no luck. When things get this bad I'm convinced it's something in my brain/nervous system and trying to treat the feet is too little too late.